Work As Art

Creativity has two parts: thinking, then producing. Innovation is embedded in the creative process. It is the implementation of creative inspiration. ~Linda Naiman

I work with a bunch of people I would classify as creatives types, as artists. These people are not recognized as creative types by society nor would I say they classify themselves as artists. They are Engineers people often viewed as left brain (logical) as people can be. However, what society and they frequently fail to grasp is that these Engineers are very creative in their solutions to solving problems. In fact, their value to the company is directly proportional to the extent they employ their creative gifts. It takes someone creativity to design a software component to seamlessly fit into a system with a minimum amount of code and maximum reusability.

If the work a person produces is a result of their creativity then they are artists. It doesn't matter that the medium is not one traditionally viewed as in the realm of artists.

In the modern world, the most valuable employees are artists that produce unique solutions to problems resulting in unique products that satisfy the needs of and appeal to end users. Their medium is the bits and bytes of software development, the ability to create test scenarios that shake out the most challenging of defects, leadership that nurtures an environment where creativity flourishes.

Creativity is so important in the modern work world that I will not even consider hiring anyone that doesn't relish being creative. My hiring criteria now requires that the individual views their work as art and themselves as artists.

Artists understand that their work, their art is a craft that forever needs developing and, if they fail to continually hone their abilities, they will lose the edge that allows them to perform at the highest levels, they may even lose their ability to create their art.

It isn't just Engineers that can be artists. Work as art is available to teachers, nurses, and craftsman. Work as art is also within the reach to those of us in Managerial roles. Work as art is a mindset.

I view my leadership skills as the medium in which I express my art. To grow my art, I have been on a quest for the past 21 years to improve my ability to lead people. I have immersed myself deep in the topic. I have read countless books on the subject, continually explore new leadership ideas by reading blogs and watching videos, and attend an annual two day leadership summit to learn from some of the greatest leaders in the world.

More importantly, I take those things I learn, separate the wheat from the chaff, and apply what I have learned to the groups of people I am privileged to lead. As I see it, my primary duties are to create an environment where the artists can flourish, where the artists are free to create the unique art each is capable of expressing and to help them view themselves as artists and encourage them to create masterpieces.

It is only by continually developing my leadership skills, my art that I can create my masterpiece in which others can experience their own work as art.

Book: Matterhorn - A Novel of the Vietnam War

I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy. ~William Westmoreland

As a youth, I was fascinated with World War II. I read countless books about the war, about the evil empire threatening to take over the world, about the heros fighting for our freedom, about bravery in Normandy and Iwo Jima. The fascination followed me into college where I took a class my Freshman year on the history of WWII to satisfy an elective requirement. 

This fascination was an outgrowth of growing up with my dad who also had a fascination with WWII. We watched war movies on a regular basis, classics like, "The Guns of Navarone", "The Dirty Dozen", any war movie featuring superhero John Wayne.

Vietnam, the war closest to my generation, on the other hand, put a bad taste in my mouth, a bad taste that lingers to this day. The debate about that war was one of the first times I remember my dad and I being at odds about a subject. He was pro war while I was vehemently against this particular war. I distinctly remember this though I was barely a teen when the war ended.

Since my youth, Vietnam has been a topic that sets about a churning in my stomach. When I first saw Platoon in a theater, I was shocked. I remember sitting in stunned silence in the theater with tears running down my face. The movie was so difficult for me to watch that it was many years before I could muster the courage to see it again because the effect on me was so deeply saddening those years before.

This week, I read my very first book on Vietnam. It was a fictional account which, if I am to believe the reviewers on Amazon, captures the essence of that war, the senselessness of the war. Unlike my WWII books of old where 'We' won in the end, the end of this book did not have us winning. The end of this book had us still in the war. The end of this book left me feeling the futility that must have been a rampant, every day cloud hanging over the heads of the soldiers dying in battle.

The book explores the minds of the soldier as they slogged through the jungle frequently short of rations, short of ammunition, short of sleep, short of a deeper meaning for the tactics employed by the marine hierarchy handcuffed by politicians thousands of miles away on the home front. The book explores the racial divide, the conflicts between the 'splibs' and the 'chucks' that had them fighting each other, sometimes killing each other.

This is a book that will make you think and make you feel the contrasting emotions of admiration for the soldiers and disdain for the political establishment while giving a grunts eye view of the Vietnam war. It's a very good book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the challenges facing the ground troops in that horrific era of US history.

Sacrificial Investments

Any fool with a dick can make a baby, but only a real man can raise his children. ~Furious Styles, Boyz In The Hood


Some investments are made with the hope of personal gain such as a college education or purchasing stock options or spending hour upon hour pumping iron at the gym. Other's are made not for personal gain but for the benefit of others. These tend to be selfless investments rooted in love such as when one embarks upon a mission trip to aid the suffering in strife torn part of the world. For me, the most personally rewarding of all investments is the one I made in my children. It was an investment that required years of sacrificial love, an investment that has realized and is realizing priceless, intangible rewards.

I was 25 when my first child, the first of three, nestled in my arms. That was more than half my life ago. I have now lived more years with kids than I have childless. I have had kids for so many years that I have difficultly remembering what I was like BC, Before Children. The one aspect I do remember is that BC I was an arrogant SOB that cared for little more than my own happiness and saw the rest of humanity as a means to my ends. The result was that I was never really happy. My emotional investment in my kids has paid unimagined dividends in that the investment helped me to become more caring, more loving, more human. The personal transformation has led to me being a truly, happy person.

Despite my mistakes in raising them, and there were many, all three have turned out to be great kids with bright futures. They have grown up to be hard working, industrious, caring people with a keen sense of the importance of family and a social consciousness all which validate that I did a somewhat decent job coaching them into adulthood.

I do believe one of the best things I did in raising them was to rarely tell them what to do in a challenging situation. When they were at a crossroads, they often asked me for an answer. However, an answer is rarely what they received. Instead, we discussed the situation, the options, the benefits and consequences of each option and I allowed them to make the final decision. This is not to say, they did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Of course, in matters of personal safety, I did utilize executive privilege and make unilateral decisions.

There were times when they wanted to engage in an activity with which I did not agree. The conversation was frequently along the lines of you can choose to do said activity but know that the consequences of making that choice will see you lose some priviledge for a specified duration. At times, they made a choice that resulted in a sanction. More often than not, they made what I would consider to be the judicious choice (i.e. my preferred choice).

Most situations we discussed were not borne of a situation where they wanted to do something with which I did not agree. Most were real life situations with friends or school or other activities where they had two or more good options and they had to decide which one they should undertake. Dad, should I play for soccer Team A with all my best friends or with Team B where I will be the only new kid but will learn a lot more?

In such a situation, the pros and cons of each choice from a variety of perspectives would be discussed. Which is more fun? Which aligns with your long term goals? What will you have to sacrifice for each choice? In the end, they would regularly ask which they should choose and my response was always that it was up to them. This way, they always had to own their own choice. Years later I was told they were mad that I would not make the decisions for them but, now, they were grateful because they have the ability to make decisions.

Raising kids this way takes courage. There will always be times when they will make choices which, from experience, we know will end in tears. As parents, we naturally want to protect them from pain and suffering. But this is doing them a grave disservice because, frequently, the greatest personal growth comes from experiencing the consequences of personal choices.

Raising kids this way takes courage because they will make choices that terrify us. At 16, my son decided he wanted to join the Marines. I was against this partly because I was a kid at the tail end of the Vietnam War so had a strong distaste for the military industrial complex and because I was terrified my child would be killed in action. We had challenging discussions about his decision but, in the end, it was his decision, one I believe he made with a solid understanding of his options. His choice was not the one I would have chosen for him. At 17, he enlisted.

During the raising of my children, I never looked beyond them to the next generation, never considered how the methods I was doing would influence how they raised their own children. I am blessed to currently have one grandchild. I am happy to see my grandson being raised with some of the same child rearing techniques I used and that his mom has surpassed my skill level in many child rearing areas.

The investment my parent's made when raising me has reaped dividends in my children and in my grandchild. I hope I am around long enough to witness the dividends in the lives of my great grandchildren.

Teaching A Cat To Fetch

You can't teach a cat to fetch. ~Steve Jaworski


I had an interesting conversation with a colleague this week. The conversation centered around the leadership training class I am both creating and teaching to individuals at my company, individuals viewed as up and coming leaders who have the potential to improve the organization. With 4 of the 6 training sessions complete, the response from the seven attendees has been overwhelmingly positive and, the real test, they are applying some of what they have learned and are affecting positive change in their teams. The gist of the conversation that I found particularly interesting came from a single comment. And I paraphrase:

"Of course the training is going very well. You hand picked the cream of the crop for your first group of trainees. The real test would be to take person 'X', a person assigned a leadership position because of technical skills, and turn them into an effective leader."

The underlying implication is that I cherry picked a situation and that anyone in my shoes working with talent would easily experience success. This minimization of my accomplishment aside, the comment is based, in my opinion, on a misunderstanding of the situation and, perhaps, a misunderstanding of motivation as it applies to human nature.

There are two schools of thought on how an individual can be most valuable to an organization and achieve personal success. One school says a person should develop their weaknesses to make them well rounded, a sort of, Jack of all trades. The problem with this school of thought is contained in the rest of the phrase, that is, a Jack of all trades and a master of none. The individual is seen as a generalist. In some situations, a generalist will do just fine. In this day and age, what really sets a person apart from everyone else occurs when they excel at their personal art, when they maximize their strengths and apply that which makes them unique.

Our strength and value to society or an organization comes from our individuality, is borne of the uniqueness that makes us unlike anyone else ever born or ever to be born. The other school of thought, the one to which I ascribe, is based on each of us being a unique individual with skills and giftedness that should be maximized. The maximization of our giftedness will bring about personal satisfaction and, the enjoyment we get from maximization our gifts, will enable us to uniquely influence the organization moving it toward success.

In my case, I must understand some principles of accounting for my role as a Manager in my company. However, no matter how much I learn, accounting will never be something I enjoy, something in which I excel. The reason I will never really excel is that I hate accounting, it bores me, it drives me to watch the clock and scurry out of the office at the end of the day. The topic of leadership, on the other hand, is a topic that fascinates me, a topic I have been studying and applying for over twenty years. Leading teams and developing leaders is something that I enjoy immensely, I find deeply satisfying and, from the feedback I have received from my teams and trainees, something at which I am good. Working in the area of leadership generally finds me looking at the clock long after quitting time and wishing it wasn't so late because I am having too much fun to go home.

Now, back to person X from the conversation with my colleague. Person X is a brilliant software developer who revels in finding unique solutions to software problems. In addition, person X gets great satisfaction out of being the hero, of being the go to person to solve a problem that no one else can find. Leadership, sacrificing so others can excel, others can be the hero is not an area which brings him joy. In fact, other's being the hero is in direct contradiction to one of the ways he derives personal satisfaction.

As suggested, I could run person X through my leadership training class. It's an experiment I would undertake though, I believe, it would be a poor investment of time on my part and on person X's part. I would not expect any more than a marginal change in behavior if any change at all. I would not view this lack of change in any way indicative of the quality of my training class or in my abilities as a trainer of leaders. The reason is very simple. Person X is not intrinsically motivated by being a great leader. Person X does not have a DNA inclined toward the sacrifices required of someone in leadership.

For someone to really develop a skill, they need to have an aptitude for that skill. If I wanted to teach an animal to play fetch, I would find myself a dog, preferably a dog bred for retrieving, and work through the necessary steps such that dog would track a thrown object and bring it back to me for a repeat performance. 

To attempt this same training with a cat would be justifiably seen as folly because it's not in the cat's DNA to fetch an object. A cat is simply not motivated by chasing a thrown ball and bringing it back to the thrower. However, I don't believe any sensible person would judge my abilities as a trainer of fetch on not being able to teach a cat to fetch. That would be like someone giving me carrot seeds and saying I wasn't a gardener because the seeds failed to reap watermelon.

Mask of a Hawk

The bird hunting a locust is unaware of the hawk hunting him ~Proverbs

There was a time in my life when I couldn't get enough of the outdoors, couldn't get enough of all things wild and free, couldn't get enough of nature and camping and back backing, couldn't get my fill of birds. I would spend hours walking in the forest preserves imaging what it would be like to run with Deer, stalk with Coyote, wear the feathered coat of Hawk and soar above the trees in search of a meal, in search of solitude, in search of peace for my tormented soul.

For I was tormented, tormented from within, tormented by an angst which seemed never to be satisfied, never tempered, a seemingly ravenous apetite consuming my soul for all but the briefest of moments when I was lost somewhere deep in the halls of my mind. It was a time when I sought peace from the outside, sought comfort in the external. I lived this way for many years, lived this way until I learned that peace comes from within, learned that the external can never satisfy the hunger of the internal.

It was during this time that I experienced one of the greatest periods of creativity in my life. It was during this time that I was walking in the woods and happened upon the empty shell that used to be cedar waxwing. This poem grew of that experience.




Mask of a Hawk

On the muddy bank of a silt laden river,
Beneath a plant laughing in white and purple flowers,
Lies a splintered shell

Ebony eye captures sunlight
Falling through broad leaf trees

Soft, silvery down supports
Resting black and russet head

Beak parted
Frozen
In final, futile
Scream

Crimson painted hollowed skull lies vacant in decaying leaves

Severed, single, black leg, hides
Beneath pink tipped and yellow fringed feathers

Gently curved talon
Caresses nonexistent branch

Some weep at your passing
But not I,
For you are yet alive

Death
The keeper of the costumes,
Has merely bestowed a new guise

You donned the masks of countless insects,
Before enjoying the mask of a cedar waxwing

For a brief moment,
You'll wear the mask of a high flying hawk as it
Ascends toward the Sun on the breath of Earth

The Wonders of Nature

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry. ~Muriel Rukeyser


There was a time in my writing life, early in my attempts to make sense out of life by putting thoughts to paper that I dabbled in poetry. It was a time when I was lost as an individual flitting about trying to make sense of life. I possibly would have floated away into oblivion had it not been for the anchoring effect, the stabilizing effect my children brought into my life. The poem below, written in the late 1980s, was the result of their influence of my life.









The Wonders of Nature




I took you to the woods to show you the wonders of nature


We strolled together down dirt path
I had to walk slow because you kept stopping to put
Stones in your pockets and collect sticks


I showed you a high flying bird
You were examining a pile of plucked cedar waxwing feathers,
Holding the pink tipped and yellow fringed ones in separate hands


I showed you the leaves in the trees
You were tracing the red veins of a discarded maple leaf
With your slender, tanned fingers


I showed you a deeply furrowed tree trunk
You were petting a black and yellow spider
Hidden in the valleys of the bark


I showed you a squirrel
You were busy collecting acorns
Saving the capped ones in the pock of your jeans


I showed you a mushroom at the base of a tree
You placed your nose next to the mushroom
And partook of it's earthy aroma


I showed you a river
You were lost in the lakes
Formed in the knotholes of a beaten wooden fence


I took you to the woods and you showed me the wonders of nature

The Unlived Life

When Inspiration touches talent, she gives truth to beauty. ~Unknown

In his wonderful little book, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield muses on those things that keep us from our creating our art. This is not necessarily art in the typical sense of the word, though it can be painting, writing, dancing or any of the traditional art forms.

The art to which he is referring has a broader definition. The art to which he is referring is the art of our lives. It is the art living within us, the beauty we want our life to be, it is the untapped potential of our dreams. The question can be posed as, what is  the unlived life trapped inside the life we are living? Steven Pressfield sums it up:

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. ~Steven Pressfield


The enemy keeping us from realizing our unlived lives he terms Resistance. He goes on to call Resistance the most toxic force on the planet.

Resistance is the obstacle keepings us from going to the gym, it's the enemy that keeps us from praying, the opponent that blocks us from taking a seat in front of the computer and writing our blog, from writing the novel we have dreamed about since we first cradled book in our hands.

Resistance is an internal, invisible force that surfaces when we are called to any sort of action, to any activity designed to enhance our soul, to any form of personal growth.

Do I start my training regimen today? Is this the day I start eating more healthily? Should I begin a Masters program? Is today the day I start attending church? Resistance increases in force the more important a call or action is to our heart.

Have you ever procrastinated? Have you ever watched TV for no particular reason? Have you ever binged to avoid something? Have you ever criticized another's success? Have you ever avoided an all consuming dream to be great out of fear you may fail? Have you ever hidden your poetry because someone criticized, or might criticize the art that ebbs from your soul? All are faces of resistance.

How do you overcome resistance? By an act of will. By walking up to that keyboard and typing without worrying if the creation is good enough. By turning off the TV and going for a run despite only being able to last for a few blocks. By dipping the brush onto the palette and touching it to a canvas. By purchasing a one way ticket to a far away location and getting on that plane without knowing how, when, or if, you will ever return home. In short, by just doing it whether or not we feel like just doing it.

What face of resistance is keeping you from your unlived life, from living the life you have always wanted?